Sunday, August 31, 2008

sitting on the bottom of the pool

After I went back to sleep, I had another dream. This time I was swimming in a pool. According to DreamMoods.com, swimming

"...suggests that you are exploring aspects of your unconscious mind and emotions. The dream may be a sign that you are seeking some sort of emotional support... . To dream that you are swimming underwater, suggests that you are completely submerged in your own feelings. You are forcing yourself to deal with your emotional difficulties."

Departure/Arrival

For the third time this week I dreamt I was flying. The first time, I was flying freely in my own form. The second time, I was flying up, then flying down; later I was flying in one plane and then transferred to another. This last time, I was again flying in a plane and transferring from one to another. This recurrence of the same theme is very positive and reassuring, indicative of liberation and being lead down new, unforseen paths to the realization of personal freedom.

wallow

Something mysterious and strange hangs in the air tonight. A thick electricity of chaotic potential. At any moment it might erupt in brilliant violence. The moon is new and the world is new. I am weighted with a directionless longing. Because I want nothing, I want to want something. This longing is lodged in my belly, waiting to be turned on its head, shaken loose. I need to be shaken, stirred, my fires stoked, unshackled from the familiar and routine. The city is alive with possibility, seeping forth like gas from volcanic vents, struggling against the density of the whole ocean.

My dreams have become more real than my waking life. My emotions are more fully alive where reason cannot reach them. I linger between contempt and affection, love and hate, hope and despair. I do not know what gnaws at my heart, only that it is unfulfilled, hungering. Unsated, it feeds on itself, growing stronger, all consuming. Anxiety shivers down my spine, anticipating the day when this thing is satisfied, consuming itself with cancerous abandon. My heart is ever broken.

There is no peace in my mind, no respite from this nagging need for the mystery that eludes me. I cannot find what I do not know how to seek. I cannot find what I seek until my searching ceases. And still I sense this enigma beyond my grasp, and find myself pursuing it to all ends in the hope of turning up some clue. Yet, nothing. I am met by a mile high wall, erect and defiant. A plaque on its face reads, "You have not reached a wall. There is no wall where you stand. Go forth." It mocks my futile pursuit of a shadow of a dream. When will the shadow take form?

I send myself to bed hungry, a furnace roaring in my gut and bitterness on my tongue.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Conversations with DJ, the Text Message Edition

310******* I'm bored what are you doing?
317******* Sodomizing dead babies. It's all the rage in ny.
310******* Them babies ain't gonna rape themselves
317******* I know it.
310******* I have been boning my new gf indiscriminately. i boned her 8 times the other day!
317******* You stud.
310******* I know. My balls hurt.
317******* They're sapped.
310******* They've colored the walls
317******* Ew
310******* Offwhite, that is
317******* I got that
310******* It was glorious. Like the fountains at the bellagio.
317******* How does Riry* feel about all this?
310******* She likes to watch. She gets in the way.
317******* She's jealous.
310******* Jearous.
317******* I'm gonna blog this when I get home tonight.

*Riry: DJ's dog, Lily.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Hollow

I was awoken tonight from a disturbing dream by a text message. I should have known better than to leave my ringer on before going to bed but if the alert on my phone hadn't done it, the dream very well might have. Like most of my upsetting dreams, it started out without any particularly disturbing images. I was revisiting old dwelling space, though there were new dwellers in my old space... inevitable and yet saddening. Somehow, I was transport from there to a remote village in Brazil. A woman was telling me how she and a lover had been caught together by a local renegade militia and he had been murdered. Apparently the group of sadistic soldiers had been terrorizing the countryside, murdering for the thrill and thriving off the terror of their victims. They had been growing in number, collecting a brutal army. Finally they attacked the village where I was, and chaos broke loose. No one would be spared if they were caught by the enemy. I did not know who I was, only that I was somehow embodied and was running for my life. I ran past a rape treatment center, and leprosy hospital, and other indications of the miserable lives of the villagers. Though I was an alien in my settings, I was no less at risk. It was like hell's minions were descending upon us all, indiscriminate and blood thirsty. I ran through the village, from one house to the next. Eventually I came upon a man armed with a sword. He appeared to be white, presumably American, and when I encountered him he said something that I took to be a quote from a kung-fu movie. Then he paused and said "All I can think is how hollow those words sound in the face of my own death." Then he told me to follow him and we ran out of the house, nearly running over another armed man, I think he had a semi-automatic rifle. The three of us crouched along the wall of a house across the way, and waited, for what I'm not sure. It might have been to fight our way out of the village alone, it might have been for other armed villagers to band together and challenge the militia. I can't say exactly, because it was just at that moment that my phone roused me from the dream.

Salutations

I got hits from what looks to be Munich and Helsinki yesterday. I'd been hoping for some new diverse visitors, so it is my pleasure to see these dots appear.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Belated Travel Diaries--Indianapolis to Helsinki (Installment 1)

Last week I returned from a 5 day vacation in LA where I visited my oldest brother. The last time I had flown out of New York to a city besides Indianapolis was two years ago when I traveled to Scandinavia for 12 days with my grandmother. The trip was a reward for making Dean's List both semesters my second (and last) year at Hofstra University of Long Island. It was my last year because I had applied to transfer to Eugene Lang College in the city. At the time of our departure in late June, I had yet to receive any word from Lang about my acceptance, though I was certain it was in the bag. However, the uncertainty was in the back of my mind as my grandmother and I flew from Indianapolis to JFK for our connecting flight to Helsinki. Also on my mind was the fact that my grandmother had booked the trip through a tour group organization and consequently I would be the youngest in the bunch by, oh, say, 30 or 40 years. I really didn't know what to expect.

Since I returned from LA, I've been thinking about my past travels. I dug out the journal that I kept during the time of the trip and began rereading my entries. I had only written one thing in the blank, black, leather-bound book before leaving Indianapolis. I may have written it while I was packing, but I don't remember.

"I measure my travels by the soles I've worn thin. Under my bed, hidden in boxes, are souvenirs of those places whose streets I've tread. In time I'm sure I'll let them go, but until I have other rubber thin and smooth from wear, I'll keep them with me. Unlike other articles from my past, these still fit no matter how much I grow. From day to day to day."

June 21, 2006
I am currently in the air over Massachusetts or Connecticut. Already I am suffering separation anxiety. Not for Indianapolis, of course, but rather for New York. I didn
't so much as step foot in Manhattan, but catching glimpses of the skyline from the Airtrain and during takeoff exhilarated and devastated me. I joked with Grandma that she could just leave me in New York and pick me up on the way home. Sitting in the plane, looking out across the tarmac at the skyline, I couldn't help but think, "This is the city that I love." When we flew over Long Island, I tried looking for Hofstra, but I think I was on the wrong side of the plane. I'm always on the wrong side.

This whole experience doesn't feel real yet, though I've been traveling all day. As soon
as we landed in New York I began to feel like myself again. I could not be more grateful or relieved to have escaped the Midwest for the time being. An oppressive weight has been lifted from my spirit. I expect this will be one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life thus far. I imagine the reality of it won't sink in for a few more days. I wasn't even totally acclimated to Indianapolis when we left. But I do enjoy not being tied down to any one particularly spot.

[For those of you who've read some of my other entries, you'll recognize this theme of not wanting to be tied down. My frequent moves in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the utter despair that descends like a fog when I end up in some city or town where I can't get around on foot and end up stranded and restless, forfeiting my self-reliance to whomever takes it upon his or herself to chauffeur me around. What misery.]

June 24, 2006
5:05 AM
We arrived yesterday to our hotel in Helsinki, around 11 or 12 in the afternoon. Grandma and I took
a walk around the streets surrounding the hotel. There was an abundance of hair salons, and we found an optometrist where I could finally have the arm screwed back onto my glasses. While we waited, we explored the Kaampi Center, which is simply a multilevel mall on top of a bus station. While I was there I was excited to hear "One Hit" by the Knife playing in one of the stores. Afterwards we returned to the hotel to nap before dinner, despite our tour leader's suggestion to avoid naps in order to adjust to the time difference. Dinner came after a "welcome drink" where everyone had to introduce themselves to the group. Consistent with my expectations, everyone save for myself was of the AARP crowd.

After dinner we returned to our room where I promptly fell asleep, only to awake at 2AM. Despite all efforts I could not fall back asleep. Grandma also woke up, and thought turning on the TV was a good idea. I chose to read, making it through 50 or so pages of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. After a couple of hours I tried sleeping again, but because Grandma insisted on leaving the TV on so she could sleep, it was a pointless effort; noise and light are keeping me awake.

Today we had breakfast at 7, an information briefing at 8:30, then left for a bus tour of the city at 9:45. We rode through the city down to the Gulf of the Baltic Sea then stopped at an old Lutheran Church built out of a natural granite structure. There was a beautiful organ and humid interior was filled with the smell of wet stone. I took a lot of photos and bought some postcards for those friends I promised to write.

After we boarded the bus again, we dro
ve around, cruising past more sights, stopped for 10 minutes to see a monument erected to Finland's most famous composer (named _________) then we found ourselves passing by the Olympic Stadium. We stopped one last time for a photo-op of a beautiful and elaborate Lutheran Church in Senate Square, in the center of which was erected a statue of Czar Alexander. Finally we were dropped off at Market Square to browse the stalls for 45 or so minutes until it closed at 1pm. We walked from there to the Esplanande and window shopped all the boutiques which comprise the design district. As the afternoon waned, I successfully navigated me and Grandma back to the hotel despite her second-guessing every move I made.

Because today was Midsummer's Eve, which is a big holiday here in Helsinki,
everything was closed except McDonald's, so we had a late lunch there. Because of the currency exchange rate, not only was it the worst McDonald's I've ever eaten, it was likewise the most expensive, with a value meal costing 12-15 USD. After our meal I napped off my stomach ache for a few hours before we left for the Midsummer's Eve Bonfire Festival on the island of Seursari. We spent a couple hours meandering around, ate some peculiar items such as a potato dog, which was essentially a hot dog wrapped in has browns, and also meatballs and little potato balls. None of it was particularly good but in the spirit of new experiences I tried it. I spent most of my time taking pictures, and have already started on my second roll of film.

Tomorrow morning we are on our own, then in the afternoon we le
ave by plane for Copenhagen. While Helsinki has been different, it has not been particularly exciting, perhaps because it has been a holiday weekend the whole time we've spent here. I am looking forward to the next stop, and I'm glad we only spend a couple days in each place.


I LOVE DANCING!!!

Man, I had a lot of fun tonight.

Secret Faggot was bangin-- best queer dance party/show in Brooklyn!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

in my own words

tension headache

I weary of this disdain, this exhausting frustration. The specters of past failures drift as I drift, through tunnels and alleyways, empty hallways, this empty bed. I mourn these ghosts as half-heartedly as I cared for them while they lived. First, frustration sprung from this desperate impotence; next, a passionate anger, rage where there was once, even briefly, tenderness; finally, indifference, an unfortunate casting away of all vestiges of the potential for a life unlived. It is foolish to cling to hypotheticals, foolish to linger in the shadow of ambivalence. And yet... and yet... ?

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

obviously




I always get a laugh out of people dressing dogs like babies.